Thursday, May 23, 2013

Morality, Dehumanization and the Arab Cause

By Tuvia Brodie

A cause that calls itself moral should be consistent. If one demands moral consideration, one should behave morally, if only to demonstrate that one understands what ‘moral’ means. But the Arab cause does not promote moral behaviour and its Arab citizens do not act morally. Does that make their cause immoral?

Think about how the Arab speaks about his cause. At the United Nations, on November 29, 2012, Mahmoud Abbas told the world he wants his own state. He spoke of justice, ‘moral values’ and ‘moral duty’.

He connected statehood for ‘Palestine’ with morality.

But Mahmoud Abbas and his fellow Arab leaders do not make this same association when speaking to their own people. They do not speak about morality. They don’t speak about peace. They speak of war-- against Israel; and the way they manipulate their people towards that war is anything but moral.

The Arab cause is the destruction of Israel. Read the Arab Charters for PLO/Fatah, and Hamas. According to the Hamas Charter, the only solution for the ‘Palestinian problem’ is religious war, not political compromise. According to the PLO/Fatah Charter, their cause is not peace-with-Israel, but the removal of the ‘Zionist entity’ from the Middle East.

To identify the destruction of a sovereign state as the reason for one’s existence is not moral behaviour. To declare religious war against a homogeneous people (Jews in Israel) is not morality. It’s a call for ethnic cleansing.

Ethnic cleansing is not moral. It is connected to racial hatred. It is a crime against humanity.

It’s also the Arab battle-cry against Israel.

Arab leaders have one message: we will destroy Israel. Follow us, and the Zionist entity will disappear.

That’s not a moral cause. It’s racist hate.

Arab political and religious leaders are not shy about their hate. They love it so much they repeat it constantly: in speeches and publications, on TV and in the mosque. They will even hold up maps showing their Palestine in place of Israel, not beside it. They honour those who murder Jews. Their public heroes aren’t athletes or scientists; they’re killers.

When ethicists write about war, they often explore what makes war just or unjust. For these discussions, they identify a singular ‘smoking gun’ that presages unjust war: dehumanization of the enemy.

Dehumanization exists only for vicious intent. Arab characterizations of Jews and Israel dehumanize and demonize in ugly and repulsive terms. Arabs call Jews the enemy of god. They say Jews descend from apes and pigs. They say Jews engage in religious ritual to kill children for blood. They say Jews organize and control the world drug trade. Arabs call Israel a cancer.

Ethicists identify such tactics as immoral. These tactics are public manipulations designed for one purpose only: to remove psychological and moral barriers to killing. They are related to delegitimization, racism, moral exclusion and illegal violence—all characteristics of the Arab war against Israel. Nazi dehumanization of the Jews as vermin—and similar Arab descriptions—make this point: it might be tough to kill a fellow human; but killing vermin isn’t just acceptable—it’s socially desirable.

For the ethicist, dehumanization is not just a way to prepare for killing. It is a particularly vicious and immoral behaviour directly linked to the worst kind of killing--genocide. Dehumanization in both Nazi Germany and Rwanda telegraphed—and then led to--genocide.

Dehumanization is a communal preparation for genocide. Arab dehumanization prepares (and encourages) Arabs to slaughter Jews—often, for Islam (see the Hamas Charter and dozens of religious speeches recorded since the 1930’s).

Dehumanization, through manipulation and conditioning, encourages all ethical, moral and religious considerations to be thrown aside. Arabs have used dehumanization of the Jew for so long that slaughtering the Jew-pig has become the religious and social norm, not the exception.

Ethicists have observed that wherever you find public dehumanization and demonization of another, you find unjust war. The link between the two is that clear. We saw this in Gaza, in November, 2012. There, fighting against Israel, Arab warfare was purely unjust: they fired rockets from within civilian Arab populations; they fired into civilian Israeli populations; they used faked photographs and news reports to support their demonization of Israel.

To the ethicist, each of these examples illustrates what unjust war looks like. Each example is immoral; each is linked to the contemporaneous use of some form of dehumanization (including celebrating over dead Jews).

If the Arab cause is moral, why does he so embrace the immoral?

Actions speak louder than words. Arabs want you to accept them as moral people seeking justice (the 2012 Abbas UN speech). But their actions are immoral; and their dependence upon dehumanization telegraphs their desire for the ultimate immoral horror called genocide.

Arab dehumanization of its enemy does not suggest a moral cause. Their cause is not moral. It is horribly, unacceptably and criminally immoral.